First off, I’m not paranoid. I don’t have a tin-foil hat, subscription to conspiracy weekly, or a pressing need to take a different route to work every day to stop people following me. I genuinely believe Diana died in a car crash, Elvis died on the toilet, and the lone gunman actually did it. I understand that Governments cover things up, and I’m happy with that because I suspect their secrets are either a) boring or b) terrifying – both of which are covered in my life by a) tax returns and b) overdrafts. There’s no such thing as aliens, and even if there were, I certainly wouldn’t believe they travelled all this way to stick something unpleasant up my bottom. And if they did, why is everybody in such a hurry to meet them?

But I am scared of Google. Not because of the conspiracy theories, or because it’s fashionable, but in the same way I’m scared of the sea. It’s huge, mostly benevolent, and unpredicatable – and the vast majority of us depend on it far too much.

Think of the amount of Google searches you’ve made and what they potentially say about you. Think about the times you’ve used maps to find places, think about the conversations in your Gmail account. Think about your videos on YouTube. Think about all these little pieces of you stored in Google’s servers and what they add up to – think about your relationship with this ONE company. It’s unnerving to think that Google potentially knows more personal stuff about me than my friends and family. And yet I handed that information over with a smile on my face and a song in my heart.

Not I’m not saying Google is about to start trading in our secrets. Why should it? It’s admirably profit driven, and its profits depend on users, and users depend on trust – or at least contented ignorance. But, more and more, it’s becoming a repository of personal information, a massive warehouse of people profiles and it’s very existence, even beyond what it or a third-party may one day do with it, is what scares me.

Just recently, the company clarified its stance on its “Don’t be evil” slogan, pointing out that it wasn’t so much a company-wide rule as a way of thinking. The story immediately brought to mind that brilliant scene in Pirates of the Caribbean in which the evil captain Barbossa tells the wonderfully naive Elizabeth that the much vaunted pirates code “is more what you’d call guidelines than actual rules”. I’m just saying…

So I’m scared, but will I stop using it? I can’t, I have no where else to go, all the other waters are just as troubled. But I really do wonder how much longer I can trust Google’s guidelines to keep me afloat.